Sheriff Roger Deeds said that while there was no “great increase” in any one major crime category during 2013, his deputies “are trying to keep it under control.”

The Sheriff’s Office had one criminal homicide case last year, compared with two the year before. On Sept. 21, Donald McIntare, age 41, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds at his residence in southern Hood County. Four days later his wife, Savanna McIntare, was arrested at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. She is charged with his murder.

For the second year in a row, there were no forcible rape cases in the county investigated by the Sheriff’s Office.

There were 34 vehicle thefts last year, down from the 48 in 2012.

There was one robbery reported in 2013, after the county had two the previous year.

After the county saw an increase in assaults in 2012, the number dropped last year. There were 466, compared with 473 the previous year.

Burglaries jumped from 125 in 2012 to 140 last year. But the number of thefts reported fell from 360 to 309 in 2013.

“We were hoping for a bigger drop, but I know it’s been a tough year,” Deeds said. “We’re doing everything we can do to stay on top of it.

“The economy always plays a role in it – and drug and alcohol use. And when people get addicted, burglaries, assaults and thefts go up.”

Among other statistics from last year, deputies were involved in 161 drug arrests and 88 DWI arrests.

There was a total of 62,425 calls received by 911 dispatchers in 2013, compared to 61,693 the previous year.

“Since I’ve been sheriff, it has creeped up every year,” Deeds said of the call load, which is handled by 16 full-time dispatchers working shifts around the clock. “A lot of that, the county is growing.”

Deeds said this is the first year the county dispatch crew has been fully staffed on a consistent basis, which makes the number of incoming calls easier to handle.

“When I first came in (in January 2009), we were down a half dozen people,” Deeds said of the dispatch crew.